Once, you were the real you
by riftactivity
Summary: Janto. Jack meets Ianto over and over again, not his Ianto but it'll have to do. Angst followed by bittersweet fluff.


**AN/ I thought of this one after the finale of Dr. Who. When he mentions **___**Spatial genetic multiplicity**_.

**'I heart you all' and 'Galadriel1010', thanks again for helping me out with this one. **

* * *

It had been over a hundred and sixty years since he'd left earth, his presence no longer being required. The Doctor had taken him along on his adventures, after he'd lost every member of his last team trying to permanently close the too unstable Rift.

They'd travelled together for four years, but eventually Jack had stayed here, on this planet, M68 in the Omega quadrant. He'd found a new purpose on this lump of dirt. A planet where people fought a continuous battle against alien invasion, where most people were either dead heroes, or on their way to become one.

Jack crawled out of the trenches, the same trenches he'd died in more than he cared to remember. He was soaking wet from the torrential rain and so cold he could hardly move his legs. As he walked towards the encampment he looked around for survivors.

Two hundred metres from where he had fought for his own life, he'd found Xantix, his lover, dead, hit by an explosive. Like with every loss he'd had during his very long life, he cried hot tears, rocked his friend's body in his arms and screamed, at no one, for the injustice of it all. He rose eventually and walked on, because he needed to move to keep his sanity and because no matter how long he stayed holding Xantix's body, nothing would change the fact that he had, once again, lost someone he loved.

Like with all his previous lovers, he archived all his memories of Xantix. Boxed and shelved. Hidden and only to be stirred occasionally, when he needed memories to warm his heart in the darkest, loneliest hours. He'd done the same for every past lover and they were all waiting patiently to be remembered.

Two days after the battle had died down, they'd found him, still walking among the corpses, eyes empty and voice broken. He'd screamed for hours, out of desperation and still hoping to find some poor soul still alive.

They'd taken him back to the military headquarter for debriefing and now he was in the recreation room, trying to forget the past week by drinking too much and looking for a warm body to give him comfort.

That's when he saw _him_ the first time. He saw a pair of blue eyes, in the crowd and he felt one of the many boxes in his mind sling open and free it's memories.

The bad painful ones; _When have you ever asked me anything about my life?_

The sadness of not having been able to say goodbye; _Jack, I'm so sorry but Ianto's dead_.

The joy of shared laughter; _You're such a child Jack. _

Their complicity; _I won't tell Gwen if you don't tell Owen_.

And the sex; _I want you. _That gradually turned into much more; _I love you._

For an instant he actually believed It could be Ianto, _his_ Ianto that found his way to him through some crack in time. Stranger things had happened. Why not this, now, when Jack needed it the most.

He closed the distance between them without thinking of consequences or the possibility of disappointment.

.

_Ianto?_

_If that's who you want me to be sir._

.

That's when he saw the tattoo on the man's neck. He was one of the companions, trained to entertain the troops in whatever way seemed fit. In a society where loss and grief was a constant some were trained to give hope and pleasure to those who needed it the most.

Jack looked at the man again, a perfect copy of the man he knew, a Ianto point one.

Common sense told him to turn and leave, but common sense had never been one of his best properties and he wouldn't be able to leave anyway because his hands were already reaching for the man's cheeks and the feeling was too familiar to let go.

He took Ianto point one to his room, because he wanted this to be some sort of late goodbye. It was almost perfect, only the man's voice sounded different and broke the spell, but that was nothing a gag couldn't solve.

So he made love to Ianto point one in silence, drowning in the deep blue of his eyes and for one moment, the instant of an orgasm, he remembered a man long lost, a time where he was not just a war hero or an impossible thing, but a friend, a boss, a lover.

Jack paid Ianto point one without asking for his name, because he couldn't see the point in that.

With the taste of bile in his throat he packed his bags. Cried for Ianto for the second time in his long life, put all memories back in their box and placed it where he'd left it in the first place.

He left his room. Inhaled the cold night air filled with the smell of death and decay and made his way to the transport hall.

The time had come to leave this planet, to find some place called home. If anything, this encounter had taught him that fighting could never be more important than belonging. He didn't belong here, he needed a team, a family someone he could care for, someone who'd care for him. He'd ran away from closeness for too long. This encounter might have left him bleeding slightly but it had given him some sort of closure.

* * *

The second time he met Ianto's clone was more inconvenient.

Another two hundred years had past and he didn't think there were many memories of Ianto left. Many things had left his mind to make room for new experiences. His time on earth were no more than, patchy strings of words and smell. Sometimes in dreams, amongst all other images, he would see a water tower, a pterodactyl, a pissed off doctor or cute Asian girl. He thought of his dreams as modern art, eclectic and random, but beautiful nonetheless.

He couldn't complain about his life and maybe that's why all the old memories lay dormant most of the time. The planet he lived on was Rpen-Y, a small planet where not much happened, except that it had a high security prison and a defence training camp. Here they gave the best military training in that part of the galaxy, training in war-craft and first line defence.

Rpen-Y didn't promote violence for the sake of it but made it a priority to train the more defenceless races in ways to fight alien threat. That's why Jack had come here in the first place. He still believed in fighting for the right cause, in making people responsible for the future of their own kind.

Jack was the most respected trainer, highest ranked. He was teaching only the elite, the best of the best and that's how he met his wife. She was the most beautiful creature and the most fierce soldier he'd had the privilege to train. She'd accepted a trainer position after her own training in order to stay on Rpen-Y and was now carrying Jack's child.

For the first time in centuries, he was truly happy and he thought nothing could disturb his life. He thought that for the length of a lifetime he would have the love of a warm nest and the pride of a fulfilling purpose.

All that until Ianto point two walked in with a new batch of recruits, his real name being Gertor, confident, strong and the copy of Ianto in every physical way possible.

For weeks Jack avoided all contact. Only talking to Gertor when the job required it or when they were in group but the pull was stronger than Jack wanted to admit and one night, Gertor asked him for some private fighting practice and Jack couldn't refuse.He should have known then that this time Ianto's copy wouldn't show him a new course to follow but would eventually destroy everything he worked so hard for, but by the time practice was over It was too late, much too late.

_You hit like a girl sir.  
Stop using that gorgeous mouth of yours, and fight already?  
That's harassment sir._

And that's all it took. One sentence to remember, one sentence to lose everything.  
They had an affair for a week. A week in which Jack found out just how much Gertor wasn't Ianto, not the parts of Ianto Jack remembered anyway. Gertor was possessive, aggressive, dominant.

One week till his wife found out and gave him two hours to pack his bags and leave the planet. Cheating was a felony punishable by death on Rpen-Y. She knew he couldn't die so she killed him by casting him out, by making sure he'd never see his child.

Jack had always fought for what he believed in and he tried to fight this, to earn another chance, but she was hard and unforgiving. He had trained her well.  
There was no turning back. No way to redeem himself. So he left, broken and hating himself for being weak, for being drawn over and over again to an old memory he should have buried centuries ago.

* * *

_It's spatial genetic multiplicity Jack.  
But why Ianto? Why almost every 200 years?  
The universe likes symmetry._

He'd found his doctor again on Woman Wept while fighting off the Sontaran's fleet.  
The Doctor and his wife had offered him a place in their lives and at that point Jack was to tired of life to refuse the company of friends, especially friends who could understand him.

They travelled together, saving planets, helping the weak, going through time and space and he slowly regained his joy for life.  
It wasn't that he hadn't enjoyed himself during the last two hundred years, but at times the idea of "living forever" weighed heavily and he wallowed in self pity for a while, but not now because River was the most amazing woman he'd ever had the pleasure to meet and his Doctor had never seemed so happy, so full of fire.

The TARDIS landed on Atlantique Four, one of the first intergalactic settlements, one of the richest and most fun planets to ever have existed. The Doctor and River wanted to celebrate their marriage anniversary there, and Jack looked forward to some time in the sun, they could do with some relaxing after all the running they'd been doing the last few months.

They left the TARDIS and were just starting to walk towards town when Jack froze. After a while he felt a hand on his arm and the doctor voice found his way into his consciousness.

_It's not him Jack.  
I know Doctor  
Jack, don't... stop doing this, it'll consume you.  
It already does._

The Doctor couldn't stop him and neither could River. Before they had the chance to say anything more Jack had gone to talk to the man the Doctor had recognized from his own old memories.

River took the doctor's hand because she knew her husband, she knew he'd want to fix his friend before he lost control, before Jack spent his life waiting for the next copy. Before he lived only to reach the moment he met his lost friend. They returned to the TARDIS and left.

Jack always got what he wanted, today wasn't different. They didn't talk really, this was a holiday resort, it was for pleasure and fun that people came here and that's something Jack could provide aplenty. So they slept together and by sunrise Jack left without remembering the man's name, Ianto point three would be just another memory and maybe, by the time he reached the TARDIS, his tears would have stopped flowing.

He wasn't surprised to find the TARDIS gone, not really, not after he refused to listen to the Doctor's advice. Still, he sat there against his better judgment for two days, waiting for the TARDIS to return.

Just when he'd given up all hope he heard a familiar sound as the TARDIS materialised in front of him. The door opened and for a moment Jack couldn't speak, he felt the air leave his lungs, his body lose all strength and he had a hard time keeping his knees from buckling.

_The doctor told me what you're up to Jack, and although I'm flattered, I have to agree with him that you're not handling this very well._

The right voice left the right mouth and the right body wore the right suit, and Jack felt the right emotions and shed the right tears.

_I never had the chance to say goodbye.  
Yes you have, you're saying it now, you just don't know it yet. Well not in my timeline.  
How long can you stay?  
Not long enough_.

So they spent one night together, not just having sex although Ianto never experienced a night quite like that one. Never so desperate, never with that much abandon and need. The rest of the time they just talked, Ianto telling Jack old stories he'd forgotten, stories of Gwen and Tosh and Owen. Stories of John Hart and Martha Jones. Jack told him all he knew of the future and the time he spent travelling, he told him about Ianto point one and two and three.

The following day they made there way to the TARDIS in semi silence. Ianto was going back to him, the one in the past and he would stay here.

_I can't believe I cheated on you with you.  
I don't think I'd make a big deal of it.  
You'd be surprised at how jealous you can be at times.  
_  
The doctor was standing next to the TARDIS, running a hand through River's hair, and Jack wondered what the Doctor would do once River was gone. Would he be able to resist when he'd meet her copy? Would he be able to walk away? He knew the doctor would, because he had always been stronger than Jack.

Jack took Ianto in his arms one last time before walking the final distance to the TARDIS.

_I'll miss you.  
That would be nice Jack, but next time you see another me, walk away.  
I will. _

Jack told the Doctor not to come back for him and the Doctor understood. He knew Jack needed to be free again, he'd found the energy to do what he was best in, be a hero. Fighting the Doctor's fight but separately. River held Jack in an iron grip. Because they both knew there was a big chance they'd never meet again.

_Thanks for everything, River.  
What will you do now Jack?  
Go on I guess. The end is where we start from._

* * *

Two hundred years later he was out with his team, having a drink to celebrate the launch of the spaceship they'd been working on. He felt a hand on his shoulder and as he turned around he looked into Ianto point four's blue eyes.

_You're not him.  
Who?  
My point exactly._

Jack turned his back at the disappointed young man and continued his stories of a Doctor and a blue box, old earth and his old team. Stories of friendship and love, coffee, stopwatches and bikes with bells.

* * *


End file.
